The 1997 compilation album "Sacred Steel: Traditional African-American Steel Guitar Music in Florida" helped bring sacred steel music to the attention of roots-music aficionados all over the world. Writing about it in Newsweek, Peter Katel said it was "a find like a scientist's discovery of a new species."

Sacred steel is a raucous form of music that draws from gospel, rock and blues. Its most frequent lead instrument is the pedal-steel guitar, known mostly for its use in country music. Before '97, it was heard almost exclusively in churches.

One of the album's five featured pedal steel guitarists was Glenn Lee, discovered in a Miami church. In 2000, he died of cancer, but his three brothers, along with three of their nephews, continue to play sacred steel as the Lee Boys. They've released two albums and a DVD and toured throughout North America and Europe.

"A lot of the church folk still think that it should be kept in the four walls," says the band's leader, guitarist Alvin Lee, 41. "But when my brother died, we just really felt our mission was to take what we do to the world and touch people through our music."

The Lee Boys, who are based in Orlando, Fla., will perform at the Crawfish Fest in Augusta on Sunday (see sidebar), and jam with keyboardist Marco Benevento of the Benevento-Russo Duo at Sullivan Hall in New York on Thursday. Over the course of the summer, they will also hit major festivals like Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tenn., the Philadelphia Folk Festival in Schwenksville, Pa., and the High Sierra Festival in Quincy, Calif.

The music they play -- a mixture of traditional gospel songs, reworked pop and R&B hits and original material -- is not all that different from what they grew up playing in church. "We've always had a bluesy, rock-y style," says Alvin Lee. "Even in church, we would be playing a Michael Jackson tune or a Stevie Wonder tune."

Last year was their busiest yet, with about 100 concert appearances. This year, they will likely approach 150, says Lee, who plays electric guitar (one of his nephews, Roosevelt Collier, handles the pedal steel).

That doesn't leave much time for playing in church. "But we're kind of like church on the road," Lee says.

The first sacred steel group to tour nationally was the Campbell Brothers, in the 1990s. But Robert Randolph, who grew up in Irvington and now lives in Morristown, has, over the last eight years, become sacred steel's biggest crossover success story, releasing albums on the Warner Bros. label and touring and jamming with artists like Eric Clapton, the Dave Matthews Band and the North Mississippi Allstars.

Randolph has called Glenn Lee one of his primary influences. Alvin Lee describes Randolph as "a dear friend."

"What Robert did for sacred steel really opened up a lot of doors -- he took it more mainstream," Lee says. "He's definitely a key factor in getting this music out there."